Book Review: 絵師100人 generation2: New Masterpieces of 100 Eshi

Special thanks to BNN, Inc (facebook) for providing this copy for review. BNN is a publisher in Japan that specialises in art and graphic design books.

絵師100人 generation2: New Masterpieces of 100 Eshi is the sequel to 絵師100人 (100 masters of Bishojo painting) that was published in 2009. This is a 232-page paperback.

The artists are now called Eshi which means illustrators of this genre. 100 artists are featured with around 70% who are new and were not in the previous book. There are short profiles and artist websites included.

While the book description says that it includes both Bishojo (beautiful young girl in Japanese) and Bishonen (beautiful young boy) illustrations, actually most are just Bishojo.

There are probably over 400 pieces of art. The book is packed with beautiful artwork all wonderfully reproduced clearly in high resolution. Due to the volume of work, some illustrations had to be in quarter page size.

The vibrant printed colours look really nice — I'm told they used special ink for this volume.

There are lots of different styles, from the anime colouring style to the more painterly styles, and the whole spectrum within. I'm also very impressed by the backgrounds that are drawn with amazing details. The characters with the well drawn backgrounds set the mood perfectly.

The cover art is by Range Murata. That's the same girl from the first book except she's four years older now. The cover art is also included as a huge poster (53 by 75cm).

It's a great artbook recommended to those who like Japanese style Bishojo pin-up illustrations.

絵師100人 generation2: New Masterpieces of 100 Eshi is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and CDJapan.co.jp)

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